 What's up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. If you are new here my channel is all about mental health as well as addiction recovery but today we are going to be talking about forgiveness and how to forgive your parents which is a topic that hits very close to home with me and it's something that fellow YouTuber Shane Dawson has been going through lately. So just to kind of recap Shane Dawson has been doing a series lately where he's confronting people from his past kind of meeting up with them talking about things that went wrong and all that stuff and it's been kind of a healing experience for him. Shane's father left when he was young and he's had a couple interactions but not many but if any of you follow Shane Dawson you know that he's done a lot of videos in the past about his father and how it's affected him through his life. So finally he was ready to meet up with his father and talk about some things that are pretty uncomfortable. And I didn't want to make it worse and I knew that you were venting I knew that you were struggling with life in general and I figured a time would come when we could talk about it. The whole thing that I realized is that I looked at my childhood like you were this like quiet angry guy who didn't like me or didn't understand me or any of that. As I grown up and talked to mom I realized that you were probably just in a bad relationship. So yeah that clip you just saw I'll put a link to it in the description below if you would like to watch the whole video. But this is a topic that I've been meaning to do for a while and Shane kind of inspired me to move one of my other videos over and talk about this today. So forgiving our parents is one of the most difficult things to do. A lot of us if you're watching this channel and you're trying to get mental health help or emotional help it might be from a lot of stuff that happened in your childhood and it could have a lot to do with your parents. So just a little bit about my story for those of you who haven't been following my channel I am the son of an alcoholic mother. So growing up it was very very difficult. If any of you are children of alcoholics or drug addicts you know exactly what I'm talking about. As of recording this this is right after Thanksgiving almost coming up to Christmas and the holidays were the worst time of year for me. I couldn't understand why I just couldn't have a normal childhood. I couldn't understand why Christmas Eve involved me being with my drunk mother and driving on our way home from my grandma's house with her passed out in the front seat after causing a big scene in front of our whole family and losing her mind. But other than that this was a regular routine and at a very young age probably around 13 or 14 years old I decided that I didn't want to visit my mom anymore because when my parents divorced when I was about four years old I went and I lived with my dad so at a very young age I separated myself from my mom. Now shame for Shane a lot of his issues manifested in sadness and depression. For me there was some depression but a lot of it was mainly anger all right. I've had a lot of anger issues throughout my life and it's one of the reasons I made this channel because getting rid of my anger is part of the way that I've healed myself mentally and I just had so much anger towards my mother like why couldn't she just be a normal mom? Why couldn't she? And I also had a lot of resentments towards the rest of the world like I love my friends but I resented them because they had this perfect family that I wish I had and I just started hating the world and I started resenting just if there is a God why did you put me in this terrible situation? Now on my father's side like I said my dad raised me and you know I'm the kind of kid who grew up in bars. My dad I'm his only child I have a half sister but my dad's only child so you know growing up I grew up in bars I was a kid five six years old over in the corner drawing on a placemat and stuff all my dad was at the bar drinking with his friends and you know hitting on the ladies and all this stuff trying to find me a new step mom or whatever the hell he was doing and you know growing up like I loved him because he was there for me when my mother wasn't but he was also out he worked a lot and when he wasn't working he was out with his friends and stuff like that and a lot of the times like I was pretty much you know raising myself and growing up even though I love my dad I also had some resentments towards this so I just had a lot of anger with the way that I was parented I grew up watching a bunch of tv shows and movies where it's just these picture perfect families and I'm just sitting there like why can't I have that that's actually something I touched on in a video I recently did leading up to the Thanksgiving holidays so for me for me personally I am a drug addict in recovery and what I learned about my addiction was a lot of it was based on my anger and my resentments as well as my depression I turned to drugs and alcohol I jokingly but not really jokingly say that drugs and alcohol were my anger management tool that's pretty much how I kept it together and I wasn't running out beating the hell out of people punching holes in the walls because I was a prescription pill addict and it helped calm me down and not many people can make me mad when I'm pretty high um alcohol was a little bit different of the story but I'll never forget um you know my mom got sober uh 12 years ago and when she was seven years sober she helped me get sober but when my family had that intervention you know I was in a blind rage and every piece of anger that I ever had towards my mom came out I was calling her names that you should never call anybody let alone your own mother and just telling her you know it's your fault that I'm the way I am this way and you know just losing my mind on her and you know and then I was taking it out on my dad and my family's crying and trying to get me to get help now when I got sober and this is something that no whether you're in recovery or not there's something I can't stress enough like just because you start working on yourself doesn't mean that you instantly forgive people like just because my mom helped save my life and my mom helped me a lot when I first got sober like I still had a lot of anger towards her when you have a mother who's been a drunk the first 20 years of your life you don't just get rid of that anger I still had a lot of resentments towards her and you know when I started working on my mental health I remember a lot of people saying you know resentments are like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies and it made sense but I just didn't know how to let go of this anger and something I also talked about in my other video was these expectations of what a mother should be of what a father should be and all these other things and I could not accept her the way she was and I couldn't forgive her for the past but like I say all the time we talk about the problem but we focus on the solution the best lesson that I've learned in life in life in general is this so pay attention forgiveness isn't an act so much for the other person as it is an act for yourself when we do not forgive people we are holding on to like this hot coal and it's just basically burning us and all we have to do is let go and we let go by forgiving these people and that's when I started to find some of my emotional freedom was just by simply forgiving my parents and a lot of it came from writing and writing these things down and talking about my resentments now if you're a parent if you're a parent watching this you will probably have the same epiphany that I did as I started writing down my resentments towards my parents I started to see that I wasn't doing too much better than they were when my son was still in my ex's stomach I had all these ideas of what I was going to be the perfect father the perfect parent and all these things and as I'm writing about my parents I'm seeing that like oh my god I do these things I don't spend time with my son I don't pay attention to him I'm not there for him emotionally and keep in mind he was only three years old and like I was looking at that and I started to realize that I'm parenting the way that I was parented and what that did was it helped me forgive them any even more what I started to realize is that my parents were simply just a product of their own parents not to give you you know too much info on my parents but I just want to let you know about some of their struggles my mother grew up in the 60s and 70s and for those of you who don't know I'm half African American my mom pretty much only dates black dudes um my dad's black my stepdad was black my sister's father is black so I am half black well as a young Sicilian girl growing up in the 60s and 70s my mom used to get her ass beat for um dating African Americans and sticking up for them during the civil rights movements and all these things and my mom's parents weren't all too happy about that either my mom ended up having to run away at 16 years old she dropped out of high school later getting her GED and turning that into a PhD so if any of you need to meet a strong powerful woman meet my mom um but I have to look at the way that she was parented right my dad like I mentioned he is African American and he grew up during the 50s and 60s and he dealt with a lot and he had some very hardcore strict parents you know what I mean and this is all about empathy you know we're so focused on ourselves and how we're affected by everything we don't think about what the other person is either A going through or B has been through and this has helped me not only with my parents but with human beings in general just having this empathetic view of like there's something underneath that surface that I don't know about maybe this is the reason they're acting that way you know I want people to forgive me for my past because I had a rough childhood I ended up getting the disease of addiction and screwing a lot of people over I want people to forgive me but at face value a lot of people don't even realize that those are the things I've been through so I had to start cutting my parents a break and just realize like it's a cliche saying but they were just doing the best they could and if you've watched the Shane Dawson video that's pretty much what he learns in this video is that his dad you know he did what he thought was best and if you're a parent out there like I am my little boy is about to turn nine in a few weeks like it ain't easy we mess up a lot we make a lot of mistakes some are bigger than others you know but I learned from my parents mistakes and I forgive my parents for their mistakes and now I have a beautiful amazing relationship with them um let's bring up some pictures real quick these were just taken last week when I was in California visiting my family I got to spend time with my mom I got to spend time with my dad my son was there and my mom's like my best friend now my dad and I we've rekindled our relationship and all that kind of stuff and you know like I said I'll repeat it one more time for all of you in the back who weren't listening remember forgiveness is an act for yourself the sooner you can let go and start forgiving your parents for the things they've done you'll start healing more and more on the inside so if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and again hit that little subscribe button right below this box because I'm always making videos to help you with your mental and emotional health also click or tap to the left of me right there I have a ton of videos on my channel that'll help you out so thanks for watching go forgive somebody today and I'll see you next time